The present invention relates to an information processing system, a transmitting terminal and a method of operation, a receiving terminal and a method of operation, and a program, and particularly to an information processing system, a transmitting terminal and a method of operation, a receiving terminal and a method of operation, and a program that make it possible to make a setting for permitting or prohibiting saving of a content after synchronous reproduction thereof and transmit the content when the transmitting terminal transmits the content to a plurality of receiving terminals and performs the synchronous reproduction.
Recently, along with wide networks such as the Internet and the like, a so-called ad hoc network is spreading in which devices at a same place form a network and communicate with each other in only that place.
A file sharing tool or a tool for chatting or the like may be used between a group formed by an ad hoc network. When forms of communication are developed further in the future, there is expected to be for example an increasing demand to transfer a still image, a moving image, sound or the like recorded by a given person to a plurality of devices such as portable telephones, digital still cameras, mobile viewers and the like possessed by friends of the given person to view the still image, the moving image, the sound or the like simultaneously, or to save the viewed data.
In this case, however, it is expected that a transmitter will desire to impose a “saving limitation” such that the transmitter allows a predetermined content to be viewed by a receiver but does not want the content to be saved, depending on the receiver viewing the content or the content. That is, conventionally, when a content is transferred to a plurality of devices, the devices receiving the content have no choice but to copy the data to a flash memory or the like. Consequently, not only is it impossible to perform synchronous reproduction, but also all the data is surely saved in the devices to which the data is transferred.
Techniques related to the saving limitation include for example a method that allows saving of all contents but does not allow viewing unless other information is obtained, and a method that does not allow saving of any contents as in copyguard for digital broadcasting. For example, see Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-220357).